The farmhouse where I spent most of my Sub A to Std 5 years, had a very nice lawn in the front. Many ‘serious rugby matches’ were played there – mostly Northern Transvaal vs WP. :-) Due to the chronical shortage of boys, the girls were inevitably drawn into those ‘matches’. The rugby was rough at times, and stupid, naïve farm boy that I was, I was largely unaware of the need to handle the girls differently – gentler. That is perhaps why I am such a gentle handler of women today – I have years to make up for. I was in about std 5 when our new neighbours moved in on the farm sea side from ours (we had a lovely view on the Wilderness Island Lake). Their daughter (let’s call her Olivia) was 1 year younger than me. Obviously she had to play rugby, too… One day she was running at me with the ball tucked under her one arm…Now remember, this incident happened about 40 years ago and I can clearly remember all detail of it. (Why and how?) She had a normal checked shirt on. Long sleeve. Red and black squares. My one hand grabbed her in the front, trying to bring her down. The one second there was the noise of tearing material and flying buttons. The next moment she was standing in front of me with her naked breasts. Everything freezed for a while. I really can’t tell you whether it was 1 second, 20 seconds or multiple minutes. In front of me was the most beautiful of all views I had up to that point in my life…And then the magic moment ended abruptly. She folded her arms around her upper body and ran off in the direction of their house…Yet something happened in those seconds. An awareness of each other. An awareness of the difference between boys and girls. Since that day there were more ‘innocent’ incidents between us, but we never had penetrative sex. Farm kids leave for boarding school post std 5….and then things change… Years later, with both of us studying at US, I caught a lift to Stellenbosch with her one day. Arriving there, we decided to go for a walk towards the Coetzenburg Sports Grounds. I wanted to show her a section of the tartan track that was replaced recently, but the athletics stadium was all locked up still. She started to climb over the 8 (?) feet fence and I was watching her from the bottom. She had shorts on. On top of the fence, with a leg either side of the fence, she pulled both the shorts and her pantie aside to give me a lovely “for old times sake”… Such was the 'relationship' between me and Olivia. It was a privilege indeed to have spent at least some of my childhood years living close to her....